Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 Part 3

The laws for hotels and restaurants are even more absurd. Travellers, strangers and lodgers may be freely entertained, but if _anybody else_ (who is he?) comes into the house, or remains on the grounds about it, on Sunday, the landlord can be fined as much as $50 at the first pop, $100 at the second pop, and at the third pop he is to be shut up and deprived of his license. Somebody else must be a terrible fellow on Sunday--and he is a dangerous customer on Sat.u.r.day too, for if he comes in on Sat.u.r.day evening, or even lounges on the grounds, it is a fine of five dollars for the landlord. But who is he? How is the poor landlord, or victualler to discover _somebody else_, who is neither lodger, stranger, nor traveller. The landlord cannot detect him, but all sheriffs, grand jurors, and constables are required to hunt for him! _Vive la bagatelle!_

Strictly private gambling is safe on Sunday, and our _Chevaliers d'Industrie_ may ruin a dozen families, and provoke suicide and murder,--"plate sin with gold" and it is protected, and the swindling shyster is protected too on Sunday, for no civil process can be served on that holy day; the rogue who is bothered on that day can get exemplary damages by this law of Sunday asylum. But the poor keeper of a restaurant or of an inn, is the victim for old legislative boys to throw stones at. They have provided a hundred dollar fine for every innholder or victualler who keeps, or "suffers to be kept," on his premises, any implements "used in gaming," or which may be used for "purposes of amus.e.m.e.nt," and does not prevent such things from being used on Sunday. So if he is not extremely vigilant throughout his house and grounds, he may be caught with a hundred dollar fine, OR be imprisoned three months in the House of Correction at the pleasure of the magistrate!! and for every subsequent offense may be _imprisoned in the House of Correction_ as much as one year, and then required to give security for obeying the law. Under such a law a malicious young hoodlum may contrive to send a landlord to jail.

To open a shop, warehouse, or workhouse on Sunday is a fifty dollar offense, and it is fifty dollars also for doing "any manner of labor, business or work" on Sunday, unless the judge considers it a matter of necessity or charity; nevertheless, the "making of b.u.t.ter and cheese"

is good Sunday work, if we do not _open the doors_ which would bring on a $50 fine. So is the work of steam, gas and electricity, newspapers, telegraphs, telephones, druggists, milkmen, (bakers before 10 and after 4,) boat houses, livery stables, ferry boats, and street cars. But to catch a fish or fire a pistol on Sunday is a $10 offense, and to look on at a game of chess is a $50 crime. However, the law does not punish whistling on Sunday, unless the whistler has spectators, then it is a $50 business for all concerned. To read Longfellow's Excelsior on Sunday to a parlor of company is a $50 crime. Reading Milton's Paradise Lost, or the American Declaration of Independence would also rank as criminal business, being an entertainment, and a party of twenty playing a game of croquet may be fined a thousand dollars.

Verily, if it were not for such hypocritical and asinine legislation as this, we might forget the history of New England witchcraft, and the hanging of Quakers in sight of the spot where this law was enacted as an _improvement_ on a still worse, but practically obsolete statute.

Such Sunday legislation is a fair evidence of the absence of true religion, and the predominance of hypocrisy. It is not enforced, and is not expected to be. All the Sunday legislation in New York did not prevent the immense Syracuse Salt Works from carrying on their work day and night. Gov. Hill and the N. Y. Legislature have shown their character by increasing the penalties of the Sunday laws, but they have not approached the Ma.s.sachusetts standard.

A BILL TO DESTROY THE INDIANS.

From the Boston Pilot.

The Puritans of New England and the Cavaliers of Virginia alike treated the Indians as though they had no rights of manhood. The Catholics, Baptists, and Quakers treated them kindly and justly. The Puritans took Indian lands without permission or compensation. The Catholics, Baptists and Quakers bought lands from the Indians in an honorable way.

The two policies have been in conflict for nearly three centuries.

The Government has held to the policy of buying lands from the Indians, thus recognizing their owners.h.i.+p; but it has not always paid the price agreed upon. Now, under the lead of Senator Dawes Congress has pa.s.sed a bill which annuls the treaties, and overrides all proprietary rights of every tribe, except nine of the most civilized.

His bill is the "Indian Land in Severalty Bill." It pretends to be in the interest of the Indians, but that pretense is a fraud. It is wholly in the interest of railroad companies, land syndicates, and private white settlers.

The treaties of 1868 and 1876 guarantee the Sioux tribes undisturbed possession of their reservation in Dakota. Not an acre of that land can be taken from them without the consent of three-fourths of them.

So read the treaties signed by the United States Commissioners and confirmed by the United States Senate.

The Dawes Severalty Bill takes the Sioux reservation from the control of the Sioux without asking the consent of a single Indian, surveys it as though it was a body of public land, and then says to the Sioux: The Government will return a small homestead for each of you, as individuals, and after twenty-five years you shall have t.i.tles to these small tracts, but the remainder of the reservation, (about four-fifth) must be opened to white settlers.

The Sioux protest against this outrage, and have appealed to the National Indian Defence a.s.sociation at Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., to protect their rights. This a.s.sociation has resolved to test the const.i.tutionality of this bill in the Supreme Court of the United States, and asks all friends of justice to sustain them in this legal contest.

MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE.

THE SEYBERT COMMISSION has reported against the claims of Spiritualism. Their report will not even have the effect of the French Academy report against animal magnetism, which checked its progress in the medical profession but not among the people; but before the century pa.s.sed, the medical profession has taken up the science in earnest, and re-named it hypnotism. The Seybert report will not even be a temporary damper, for while thousands of inquirers, fully as competent as the commission, and many of them far more competent to the investigation, have made themselves familiar with the facts, the commission has done nothing but to emphasize the fact already familiar among the intelligent, of the prevalence of fraud among mediums.

Notwithstanding the wonderful powers of Slade, no one acquainted with his history would place any reliance on his integrity. The more intelligent Spiritualists understood such matters, and the Ladies' Aid (Spiritualist) Society of Boston, recently had considerable amus.e.m.e.nt in the exhibition in their parlors of the materializing and dematerializing wire apparatus used by the fraudulent medium, Mrs.

Ross, which was said to have been carried in her bustle. Mrs. Ross when prosecuted for her frauds was found to be protected by the law of coverture which makes the husband alone responsible. This is a relic of the idea of female subordination and obedience which ought to be abolished. The progress of spiritualism has been marked by as many follies as that of any popular movement, and the bequest of $60,000, by Mr. Seybert, to the old fogies of the Pennsylvania University was among the stupidest of these follies. If a friend of Galileo had made such a bequest to the Catholic church in his time, to get an opinion of the new astronomy, it would have been as sensible a proceeding. It will however have one good result; it will erect a permanent monument to the ignorance of the universities, a record from which they cannot hereafter escape. Prof. Leidy was one of the salaried commissioners whose mental status was thus exhibited in the last journal:

"Your doctrine of life eternal, And everything else supernal, Might well be p.r.o.nounced an infernal Delusion!"

THE EVILS THAT NEED ATTENTION, mentioned in the JOURNAL for May, are as rampant as ever. The big combination in Chicago to raise the price of wheat by a corner, utterly burst on the 14th of June, leaving a few ruined speculators. The _Chicago News_ says: "What is called buying and selling futures in grain, is no more buying and selling in the innocent and proper interpretation of the words than the wagering on horse races is buying and selling horses. It is a species of gambling as pernicious to public morals as it is contrary to public policy."

The _Chicago Herald_ says, "No one is in love with a cornerer who corners. n.o.body wastes any pity on a cornerer who gets cornered himself." Such crimes in a petty way may be punished, but we need law for the millionaire gamblers who not only rob each other, but fleece the entire nation at the same time.

CONDENSED ITEMS.--_Mesmerism, in Paris._ M. G. de Torcy has introduced a mesmerized woman into the lion's cage, where she unconsciously puts her head in the lion's mouth: then, in a state of cataleptic rigidity, head and feet resting on two stools, the lion is made to jump over the rigid body, then with paws resting on her body, to pull a string by his teeth and thus fire a pistol. Of course this draws enthusiastic audiences. _Medical Freedom._ The attempts at restrictive medical legislation have been defeated in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maine. In Maine, the bill had pa.s.sed the Legislature and was approved by Gov. Bodwell, but upon re-consideration he vetoed it and the Senate then rejected it. The Allopathic State Society is quite indignant and calls it "_atrocious_" that they cannot enforce a law which the Senate and governor rejected. Mrs. Post in Iowa has been acquitted and will not be punished at all for the awful crime of healing a patient by prayer! The acquittal appears to be on the ground of the unconst.i.tutionally of the law. _The Victoria Jubilee_ in Faneuil Hall, Boston, called out an immense indignation meeting, and many eloquent protests. But for the energy of the police a riot might have occurred at the time of the festival. _Delightful Homes._ Asheville, N. C., 2339 feet above tide water, has a delightful climate, especially for pulmonary invalids. Northern Georgia is an elevated region of remarkable general health, and freedom from malarious and consumptive diseases. California has still more delightful homes of health and beauty. Colorado has twelve towns over 5,000 feet above the sea, and ten over 10,000.

CHAPTER IV.--CRANIOSCOPY.

The Study of the Comparative Development of the Brain through the Cranium--Importance of Cranioscopy--First Step--Facial organs--Miller, Pestalozzi, Danton, Mirabeau--Caricatures--Upper and lower parts of face--Female faces--Mode of comparing organs--Mode of manipulation--Bony irregularities--Profile comparison of height and depth--Vacca Pecha.s.see and Lewis--Old errors--Difficulties in estimation--Morbid conditions--Criminals--Napoleon--Negro murderer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HUGH MILLER.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PESTALOZZI.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DANTON.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MIRABEAU.]

The reader now understands the conformation of the brain, and the general character of its different regions. It is important that he should as soon as possible begin the study of heads, and learn to judge correctly their development. When he can do this, he has an inexhaustible source of knowledge continually with him, and every new acquaintance becomes an interesting study in ascertaining the indications of his head and comparing them with his daily conduct and manners. The more thorough and careful the study, the greater the satisfaction and delight that it yields. The good cranioscopist continually grows in knowledge, and solves all the problems of character presented in society. But he who simply studies the elements of character or organic faculties, and does not become acquainted with the organs and their measurement, soon finds his knowledge too abstract and remote from his daily life; and, instead of increasing his stock of knowledge on this subject, he continually loses more and more of what he has gained. It was for this reason, mainly, that the medical profession gradually dropped the discoveries of Gall, which would never have ceased to interest them if they had learned to apply them to the study of men and animals.

I hope that no reader will neglect this chapter, or fail to reduce its instructions to practice, for on that it depends whether he shall become a practical master of cerebral science, and be able to read every character with which he meets.

The first step in studying a head is to observe its general contour,--whether the forehead projects far in front of the ear, to indicate intellect; whether the upper surface rises above the forehead sufficiently to indicate the n.o.bler qualities, and whether it is balanced or overpowered by the breadth and depth of the base of the skull and thickness of the neck. In connection with this, we may observe that the base of the brain is also expressed in the lower part of the face which corresponds to the organs for the expression of animal force, while the upper part of the face is devoted to the expression of the upper and anterior parts of the brain. The expressional faculties shown in the face do not always coincide exactly with the real power of the organs thus expressed; but if they do not, they at least indicate their activity and habitual display; for faculties habitually indulged will show their organic indications in the face, while those which are suppressed or restrained will be less conspicuous in the face.

The reader will understand that organs located for observation on the face are organs of the brain lying behind the face, which may be reached and stimulated through it, as other organs are reached and stimulated through the cranium and integuments. The contour of the face cannot reveal the organs behind it by physical necessity, as does the contour of the skull, yet observation induces me to rely upon estimates based on facial development. I think there is a correspondence of development between the brain and face, based upon vital laws, and also a direct influence of each organ upon the surface that covers it, so that when the organ is excited the surface becomes flushed, and when it is kept inactive the surface becomes pale and withered. This may be most readily observed at the organ of Love of Stimulus, immediately in front of the cavity of the ear. The surface presents a shrunken appearance after many years of rigid abstinence, but becomes plump, bloated, or high-colored, in those whose habits are intemperate. I have also observed an itching sensation at the surface when the organs behind it were active. Any one may observe a warmth and fulness in the upper part of the face when the social sentiments are very active. In the act of blus.h.i.+ng, the flush comes upon the part of the face a.s.sociated with modest and refined sentiments, the centre of which is below the external angle of the eye, at the lower margin of the cheek-bone.

The contrasting development of the upper and lower parts of the face may be seen when we compare such characters as the enthusiastic philanthropist and educational reformer, Pestalozzi, and the high-principled and intellectual Hugh Miller, the Scotch geologist, with such as Danton, the terrible demagogue of the French revolution, and Mirabeau, the brilliant but unprincipled orator.

No skilful artist in caricature fails to observe these principles.

When he would degrade a character, he magnifies the lower part of the face; and when he would represent a more refined character, the lower part of the face becomes correspondingly delicate.

When _Puck_ would represent, a miserable wretch, he presents such a head as the following; and when a New York journalist desired to caricature an opponent as a saloon politician, he diminished the upper and developed the lower part of the head, as presented here.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WRETCH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SALOON POLITICIAN.]

All observers of countenance and character unconsciously act upon these principles and recognize a great difference in the expressions of two faces,--one predominant in the lower and the other in the upper portion of the face. That there was any scientific basis for this was entirely unknown before my discoveries of the organs behind the face, which modify its development and expression. My lectures upon this subject in 1842 were attended by the physiognomical writer, Redfield, who derived from them many important suggestions.

When the lower part of the face is ma.s.sive, broad, and prominent, while the basilar region is broad and deep, with a stout neck, we know the great force and activity of the animal nature, and unless the upper surface of the brain is well developed all over, we may expect some excess in the way of violence, temper, selfishness, perversity, sensuality, dishonesty, avarice, rudeness of manners, moral insensibility, slander, contentiousness, jealousy, envy, revenge, or some other form of wickedness, according to the especial conformation.

In the faces of women, we find the activity of the amiable sentiments marked by the fulness and roseate color of the upper part of the face, while the lower portion is more delicate than in the masculine face.

But although the facial developments generally correspond with the activity of the organs expressed, the rule is not invariable, as the reader will learn hereafter that the facial developments may be moderate when the character is not excitable or demonstrative.

If the upper surface of the head is sufficiently high, we know that great capacity for virtue exists, capable of restraining evil inclinations, and producing admirable traits of character, according to the organs especially developed.